


fringe

by ghostsoldier



Category: Lost
Genre: Episode: s01e03 Tabula Rasa, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-29
Updated: 2012-08-29
Packaged: 2017-11-13 03:05:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/498747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostsoldier/pseuds/ghostsoldier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes an apple is more than an apple.</p>
            </blockquote>





	fringe

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this immediately after I saw the third episode of the show. Obviously, it's all waaaaay off now, but I still like the story. Originally written and posted in 2004.
> 
> Warnings: one character's use of racist language, references to offscreen canon violence.

The bodies are starting to smell.  
  
Sawyer's sitting on a log a little ways off the beach, not quite in the jungle but on the ripe green fringes of it. He'd rather be _in_ the jungle, truth be told, because then he wouldn't have to look out at the others playing busy little helper bees down on the beach while the bodies from the plane swell and ripen like rotten plums in the heat...but there's _something_ out in that jungle, and just because he shot one bear doesn't mean there aren't more. And now, there's no more gun. No more gun, and no more bullets.  
  
Sawyer is very, _very_ aware of that.  
  
"Apple?"  
  
Sawyer jumps and whirls around, nearly falling off his log in the process. It's only Sayid, Mister I'm-not-a-terrorist-but-I-can-fuck-around-with-electronics, regarding Sawyer with dark eyes in a dark face, one eyebrow raised. Sayid walks quiet, but not _that_ quiet, which means Sawyer was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn't hear the fucker approach. And that's not a good thing, no sir, not on this fuckin' island. You stop listening for shit in the jungle and you're dead.

  


Surprise makes Sawyer's voice sharp. "Jesus Christ, _Abdul_ , what the fuck're you doing?" His upper lip lifts away from his teeth, like a dog with its hackles raised. "Sneakin' around like that. The hell is wrong with you?"

Sayid makes a soft huffing sound. It almost sounds like he's laughing, although Sawyer can't remember the last time he heard _real_ laughter, laughter untainted by the underlying fear and desperation that tinges all their voices. Sayid looks the way Sawyer feels -- hot and scruffy, his skin wet with perspiration in some places but dusty with sand in others. Unasked, he sits down on the log next to Sawyer, drops an apple into Sawyer's unresisting hand.

"I was not sneaking," Sayid says. He's barefoot, the legs of his pants rolled to his shins; his toes are long, oddly delicate, and they flex against the sandy underbrush as Sawyer watches. "If you had been listening, you would have heard me say your name."

Sawyer twists the stem off his apple and flicks it into the brush. He's tempted to make some sort of crack, but then the wind carries the scent of the beach -- the bodies -- over to where they're sitting, and the retort dies on his lips. Instead, he squints out at the swarm of activity, all the clueless little fuckers gathering their wood and sorting through belongings and hunting for food, wonders if any of them have figured out just how fucked up this whole situation is yet. Sawyer sighs, and finally takes a bite of the apple, chewing thoughtfully.

"You know," he says finally, "I never killed a guy before." It's not what he meant to say, but it's as good a conversational gambit as any. He takes another bite of the apple and hands it over to Sayid, who rolls the fruit thoughtfully between his long fingers before finally taking a bite from an unmarked section. He hands it back, and Sawyer swallows the bite he was chewing, sticky-sweet juice slick against his teeth. "Shot a guy once. BB guns. We were kids, goofin' around, and I accidentally got 'im in the leg. BB's still in there, far as I know. But killing? Nah."

Sayid plucks the apple from his hands and takes another bite. "You were not the one who killed him," he says, and doesn't flinch when Sawyer snarls at him. "We were all thinking of it."

"Yeah, but I'm the one who put the bullet in him. In his fucking _lung_." Christ, the sound of it, that horrible rasping gurgle. Last time Sawyer heard that, his granddaddy was on a bed gasping out his last, the whole family standing around waiting for him to die. Sayid doesn't say anything, just occasionally reaches over and steals bites of the apple -- food is already getting scarce, and Sawyer doesn't begrudge him that small familiarity -- and all of a sudden Sawyer's pissed off. Suspicious and pissed off, because who the fuck does this guy think he is, sitting there all quiet and so goddamned smart, dark eyes and dark skin and that mess of dark hair? Sawyer feels his upper lip twitch again, and he digs his feet into the sand, hunching down and feeling all the more irritated when the man next to him refuses to acknowledge his glare.

"The fuck're you doing out here anyway? Gonna try to talk me into helping all the happy little housewives down there?" Sawyer spits to the side, causing a dark little blot of wet to bloom in the sand near their log. "'Cause if that's what you're here for, buddy, you're shit out of luck. I did my bit and I'm _done_ for the day."

Sayid finally looks annoyed, and Sawyer's not sure whether the spreading heat in his belly is from anger or satisfaction. He sneers as Sayid snaps, "That is not why I'm here."

"Why _are_ you here, then? In case you hadn't noticed, Ali-Baba, me an' you ain't buddies."

Sayid's voice is calm, but his expression has gone flat, his nostrils flaring. "No, we are not. But if you call me by anything other than my name again, _Sawyer_ , I will break your face."

"That a _threat_ , Sai-eed?" This. This is good, this is _comfortable_. Better the tightening of Sayid's jaw than the easy sort of calm of before, his offhand acceptance of Sawyer's misanthropy. And for a giddy half-second, he thinks Sayid might actually follow through -- the other man is close enough now that Sawyer can catch the scent of him, heat and anger flushing beneath his skin -- but then Sayid seems to shake himself, the angry lines of his body melting back into casual watchfulness. Sawyer catches the apple core when Sayid tosses it at him.

"It was not a threat, Sawyer; it was a promise." He rakes his hands through his hair. "I'm not in the mood for this. When you stop brooding, you can come back and be useful like the rest of us."

The sting of it is surprising. Sawyer deflates before he quite realizes what he's doing, rubbing at the bristles of his developing beard until his fingertips sting. He's not going to say he's sorry, because he's not that kind of guy but.... "Yeah," he says, "fuck it. I'm not in the mood either. Why are you here, Sayid? It ain't 'cause you like me, I know that much."

To his shock, Sayid grins. His teeth are even and very white, the smile an oddly pretty one. "Why not? I am a terrorist, and you are a murderer. It seemed fitting."

"But..." Sawyer, to his utter amazement, is flustered. Damned smart Iraqi bastard has him _flustered_. "I'm not..."

"And neither am I," Sayid says, utterly smooth, as if they're talking about nothing more important than the weather. "Like I said: it seemed fitting."

"Yeah." Down on the beach, the happy little helper bees are sorting through the luggage, making piles of clothing and medicines and electronics equipment. The earlier breeze flares up, once, before dying entirely, leaving Sawyer feeling sticky and uncomfortable inside his own skin. When he lifts the apple to take a bite, he's disappointed to find that it's nothing more than a gnawed core. "Guess I can see why you might think that."

The apple core is lifted out of his fingers, and he turns sideways to see Sayid splitting the core open and delicately extracting the pips one by one and popping them in his mouth. "Hey," Sawyer says. Sayid raises his eyebrows and munches on another one of the apple pips. "You're not supposed to eat those. There's cyanide or arsenic or whatever in 'em."

That soft, huffing laughter again. "At this point, Sawyer, I think that is the least of my problems." A sideways glance, the trace of a smile. "Why? Were you _concerned_?"

He's not going to let Sayid rattle him. He's _not_. But he sure as hell isn't going to let him win either. Whatever game they're playing now, he's not going to be the one to lose. "Not a chance, mon ami." Sawyer grins with a wolfishness he doesn't quite feel. "But you're our technology guy. You get poisoned or some shit like that, you'll end up flat on your back like Shrapnel Boy in that tent down there."

"I doubt that." There's a small _crunch_ as Sayid bites one of the seeds in half. "After all...you're all out of bullets."

Fuck. Sawyer clenches his jaw, squinting his eyes against the sun as he glares down at the beach. The bastard just won. Sawyer hadn't even figured out the rules yet, and the bastard blindsided him and _won_.

"I shoulda shot him in the head," he mutters, and jumps when a shockingly warm hand touches his arm.

Sayid's sitting closer than he remembered, his eyes half-lidded. The skin of his palm is hot against Sawyer's bicep, strong fingers curving over the muscle, and his voice is calm and conversational. "Don't expect an apology," he says, and Sawyer grits his teeth, furious anew at this sudden change of the rules. Fucker. That _fucker_ , he shouldn't be touching, he should fucking _apologize_ so Sawyer can laugh in his face and _leave_...

"Don't expect me to want one," he snarls back, and Sayid's lips curve up in a quiet little Cheshire Cat smile, like Sawyer's said exactly what he expected him to say, _again_.

"Ahhh, fuck this. Fuck this, and fuck you." And he meant to get up, maybe shove Sayid or something before heading back down to the beach that smells like desperation and death, but Sayid's hand is still on his arm and he's still sitting really fucking close, and for some reason when he puts his hands on Sayid's shoulders he doesn't shove him away but pulls him closer instead.

Sayid's lips are chapped from the sun, like his must be, but they're warm and pliant and they part under his without the slightest hesitation. Sawyer doesn't really know why he's kissing Sayid -- or why Sayid's _letting_ him. Just a fucked-up way to get out some of that bullshit aggression, Sawyer thinks, but that doesn't explain why the kiss is gentle, his hands on Sayid's shoulders and Sayid's fingers circling his upper arm. The whole thing is ridiculously chaste, and he's reminded of the first time he kissed a girl, noses bumping and both of them nervous and awkward and far too careful, but then Sayid makes an irritated noise, cups Sawyer's face in his palms, and _kisses_ him, really kisses him, the slippery curl of his tongue tasting like apples in Sawyer's mouth.

And from that point, it's nothing like the first time Sawyer kissed a girl, because Sayid's tongue is as quick and clever as the rest of him, his fingers stroking deft little patterns over Sawyer's face and neck, pushing underneath his shirt to play over his ribs. He hadn't really believed Sayid about the electronics before, not even when he got the damn radio working, because he didn't trust the guy and the radio might've been a fluke, but he can believe it now, _easily_. Sayid touches him like he'd touched all those fiddly little wires of the radio, his fingertips full of electricity and easy, confident precision. Sawyer feels his own hands are clumsy by comparison, but Sayid arches under his rough caresses like a cat, and he makes a low satisfied noise when Sawyer finally winds his fingers through his hair so he can kiss him _hard_.

He's fascinated by the rasp of stubble against his skin, the way Sayid seems to radiate heat. Sawyer suspects they're pouring all the pent-up anger and energy and frustration into their kisses, but the wet dance of their tongues alters it somehow. He doesn't like Sayid yet, but he respects him; he also trusts him, and when Sayid presses the flat of his palm to Sawyer's stomach and just _strokes_ up to his chest, Sawyer breaks off the kiss with a gasp and a shudder, pressing his forehead to Sayid's as they sit there panting.

"What the..." Sawyer swallows, his fingers playing restless motions in the other man's hair before moving down to his collarbones, his thumbs stroking the line of tendon in Sayid's neck. "What the fuck're we doing?"

He expected a glib reply, or maybe a sarcastic one, but Sayid just stays quiet for a moment and pets absent designs against Sawyer's skin. "I don't know," he says finally. "This was not what I came here for."

"Yeah, well, me neither. Deal with it."

And the spell should've been broken with that, but neither of them end up moving, and Sawyer's beginning to wonder if they could kiss again, because kissing is a hell of a lot easier than thinking, when Sayid abruptly reaches up and touches Sawyer's lower lip with the very tips of his fingers. It's a weirdly intimate gesture, especially with their foreheads touching like this, and Sawyer's mind goes utterly blank.

"You bite," Sayid says.

"What?" When he talks, his lips move against the pads of Sayid's fingers, and Sawyer barely manages to resist the urge to take them in his mouth. "The fuck do you mean, I bite?"

"When you kiss." Sayid's smile is barely visible on his face, but it's evident in his voice. He strokes Sawyer's lower lip again, and Sawyer gives up and touches one finger with his tongue, smirking inwardly when Sayid's speech falters a little. His skin tastes of salt, of apple juice.

Sawyer scrapes his teeth against the underside of Sayid's finger and releases his hand, wondering vaguely if the man tastes that way all over. "Don't expect an apology," he says. Sayid snorts.

"Don't expect me to want one." A pause. "I. Liked it."

"Ah." And that should be really fucking weird...only Sawyer liked it too, a whole hell of a lot more'n he ever would've thought. "You wanna go back?" he says, and wonders at the relief he feels when Sayid shakes his head.

"No. I do not."

"So, what? We just sit out here'n make out like teenagers 'till some fucking monster bear in the woods comes and eats us?"

The ghost of a smile flickers on Sayid's lips, and Sawyer smudges it away with his thumb, chases it with his mouth. Sayid evades him, the expression on his face suddenly haughty and amused. One hand is splayed against Sawyer's chest, and Sawyer briefly wonders how that might look if his own shirt was off. Contrast-wise and all. Dark against light, or (both of them, twining together, skin on skin slippery as fish darting through water) light against dark, and there's something kinda pretty about that thought. It's the sort of thought he'll take out later when they're all around the campfire and no one's paying attention to him, when he can examine it in detail and puzzle out what it means.

"Don't get me wrong," he says. "That'd be a hell of a way to go," and this time Sayid actually makes a sound like a real chuckle.

They end up kissing more, although this time it's more about the comfort of touching and being touched, the sinuous dance of their tongues and hands reminding him that he didn't die in that plane crash, didn't die when he pulled that trigger. Sayid's maybe the only one here he looks on as an equal -- that pansy-ass doctor sure as hell ain't -- and it seems fitting that Sayid's tongue is the one stroking his own. Quick and angry man with something to prove, like Sawyer, bones sharp beneath the skin when Sawyer touches him. It's only when they hear someone yelling down on the beach than do they separate again, and Sawyer is gratified to see color high in Sayid's cheeks, lips swollen and chin rubbed raw from the scratch of Sawyer's developing scruff.

"Suppose we better go see what's up," he says, and Sayid nods.

"You supposed right." When he stands, he holds out a hand to help Sawyer up, and after a moment, Sawyer takes it, allows strong brown fingers to close around his and haul him to his feet. Sayid squeezes his hand, once, and then lets it drop, and they make their way back down to the beach and the wreckage in companionable silence. They leave the gutted apple core behind; Sawyer figures the jungle monster will eat it.

They're almost to the fringes of the wreck when Sawyer says, "So you don't think I'm a murderer?"

Sayid sniffs, pushes his hair out of his face. "Do you think I'm a terrorist?"

"Point taken."

Doctor Jack sees them on the edges of the wreck and straightens up, yelling for Sayid to come over there for a minute; they need him. Sayid brushes past Sawyer, takes a few steps, and then pauses, turning back to look at him. Sawyer waves him on.

"The good doctor needs you," he says, and points a finger gun at Sayid, clicking between his teeth. "See you around."

"Yes," Sayid says. "See you." And Sawyer supposes that could be a threat, especially considering the inscrutable smile on Sayid's lips, but there's something else in Sayid's hooded eyes, something that speaks of apples on the fringes of the jungle and oddly discovered equality. Not a threat, then, Sawyer thinks as he watches Sayid stand tall and cool with his arms crossed over his chest. A promise.


End file.
